Kant on consciousness and its limits
Type de matériel :
52
In this paper, I attempt to sort out the various meanings of the terms “conscious” and “consciousness” in Kant’s critical philosophy and especially in the Critique of Pure Reason. I first consider the different types of representations and what Kant means when he says they are “with” or “without” consciousness. I then consider the concept of consciousness as it appears in the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories, where it does not refer to a quality of particular representations, but rather to an active attitude of the mind. Properly understood, Kant’s view of what he calls “consciousness” thus inseparably intertwines what we call, after Thomas Nagel, “phenomenal consciousness” and a version of what we call, after Ned Block, “access consciousness”, but a version in which self-consciousness, expressed in the proposition “I think”, plays a central role. I argue that the combination, in Kant’s view of consciousness, of phenomenal consciousness, access consciousness, and self-consciousness, makes Kant’s view a unique resource in contemporary debates about consciousness and its role in our mental life. More particularly, Kant’s view is relevant in today’s debates about AI and its meaning for the future of humanity.
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